Occoquan Building

Cost Center Facilities

Occoquan Building at the George Mason Prince William Campus

The MBAC at GMU has been focusing on basic research in microbial ecology, polymicrobial diseases, and other Molecular Ecology applications. They have established the technology for characterizing microbial communities and the bioinformatics support for analyzing the data. The center draws expertise from the departments of Biology, Environmental Science and Policy (ESP), the School of Systems Biology (SSB), and the Computer Science Department.

The MBAC facility includes over 2,000 square feet of state of the art DNA research and teaching labs, with generous prep areas, and a 100-seat auditorium equipped for Internet connection and A/V equipment for distance learning classes. A major theme in the wet lab teaching facilities is the close connection between laboratory science and computational methods. All biology labs are wired for Internet connection and some labs are equipped with bench top computers, permitting immediate access to bioinformatics analysis software as part of their laboratory training. The Center has a Full time Manager who oversees the logistics of the projects at GMU.

The MBAC has a complete state of the art molecular biology resource with BL2 hoods, a separate PCR room, a ABI 3130xl, a Ion Torrent PGM, RT PCR machine, and high end computational facilities. A wide array of bioinformatics software is accessible through networked computers within the research labs.